Scheme aids farmers, but threatens Thai rice exports

A worker sweeps the floor at a rice stockpile in Bangkok, Thailand, on Oct. 10.

Photo: AFP

Thailand’s status as the world’s top rice exporter is under threat from a controversial scheme to boost farmer incomes that has resulted in a growing mountain of unsold stocks, experts say.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s year-old policy to buy rice from farmers for 50 percent more than the market price has hit the competitiveness of Thai exports, which are expected to almost halve this year.

“It’s the worst year we have ever faced,” said Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association.

“We are already losing our market share in the world to our competitors, especially the newcomers like Cambodia and Myanmar which are producing more and more rice for export,” he told reporters.

Rice is the staple food for more than 3 billion people — nearly half the world’s population. Last year, Thailand had nearly one-third of the global export market.

However, its worldwide share is forecast to drop to less than one-fifth this year, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which expects the Southeast Asian nation to fall behind rival exporters Vietnam and India.

Thailand produces about 20 million tonnes of rice each year on average, about half of which is normally sold overseas.

Yet this year, exports are expected to reach only about 6.5 million tonnes, according to the exporter association and the USDA.

With its warehouses filling up quickly, Thailand is running out of space to house its unsold stocks and even briefly considered using an aircraft hanger in Bangkok’s No. 2 airport, Don Mueang.

The longer the Thai government holds on to the stocks, the bigger the drain on the public finances.

Yet experts say if Thailand abandons the scheme now, it risks flooding the world market.

“They are in a jam because with all this rice hanging around they have very little option to do anything else other than just keep on going because otherwise the rice price will drop and then they will have political problems,” Thailand Development Research Institute Foundation economist Ammar Siamwalla said.

“The Vietnamese and the Indians are rubbing their hands. They’re taking advantage of the fact that we’ve slowed down our exports considerably,” he added.

If Thailand tries to shift its glut of rice on world markets now, “the price would plummet,” he said.

Ammar estimates that Thailand has about 10 million tonnes of stock sitting around in storage. The USDA predicts the country will have stocks of about 9.4 million tonnes at the end of the year and 12.1 million tonnes next year.

China and India also have large stockpiles, but their production and domestic consumption are higher.

While the scheme is putting strains on the Thai government’s finances, it has been welcomed by many farmers, whose support helped sweep Yingluck to a landslide election victory last year.

Her elder brother, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was ousted by royalist generals in a coup in 2006, but remains hugely popular with Thailand’s rural poor thanks to the populist policies he implemented while in power.

“I want the government scheme to continue because, at the very least, it helps us farmers sell our rice at a high price,” said Supoj Joopia, who has 9.6 hectares of rice paddy in Chachoengsao Province.

He said his annual earnings from rice cultivation have soared by more than half to 780,000 baht (US$25,000) since signing up.